Treated and/or mixed tobacco for smoking should provide aroma and flavour to meet consumer's demand and also the requirements of the regulatory agencies, as appropriate. Further, tobacco should provide organoleptic features to the final products, such as cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco etc., so as to distinguish products from each other and provide a more natural product without the addition of substances such as flavourings and other additives.
The state of the art teaches processes for modifying tobacco characteristics in order to meet the above mentioned requirements. However, such methods are invariably based on the treatment of tobacco with chemical substances which alter its composition, or on the addition of flavouring agents which confer identifying features to the product.
For example, US 2010/0300463 discloses a method of thermal processing of tobacco material, at about 60° C., comprising mixing tobacco with water and an additive selected from lysine, glycine, histidine, alanine, methionine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, proline, phenylalanine, valine, arginine, di- and trivalent cations, asparaginase, saccharides, phenolic compounds, reducing agents, compounds with a free thiol group, oxidizing agents, oxidation catalysers, plant extracts and combinations thereof.
Nevertheless, a simple, flexible and efficient tobacco treatment method for developing and personalizing its organoleptic features without the need of adding flavouring agents or other chemical products is not known.